Before the Blood Dries
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "His gum line ached, canines throbbing as his baser nature fought to make itself known. Burbling to the forefront as his senses sharpened. The hunger lancing through him as he fought for control.." -  Vampire!Parrish/Lorne fic
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash/slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language, adult situations, gore, blood, angst, and other related sexyness.

**Author****'****s**** note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish__ -__ Parrish __is__ a__ vampire__."_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

"…David.. _David_.. Damnit, stay with me! Come on Doc, you gotta-.."

Awareness returned with a snap. - _Evan._ He blinked into the stillness. Eyes fluttering open as his hearing shuddered. Sending the words that he knew were echoing out into the air above him into a sluggish tangle of broken off syllables and drawn out verbs. – _He__ didn__'__t__ understand__ why-.._

"Don't you go anywhere on me Doc… Com'on, look at me!..."

Something was different. _Wrong._ He could smell it, scenting the difference on the air as the wind shifted. He could all but_ taste_ it. Something had changed. Something wasn't right… - His tongue flicked out to trace blunt teeth and came back with the taste of bitter iron and smelted copper.

–_Oh_..

And as his own blood flooded over his tongue, rising up from his throat in frothy, bubbling waves, memory returned with a rush. That was the thing about blood. It kept within it more then just your life, but an essence of yourself as well. Memories, snatches, impressions, it was all there. Locked away under the flavor of heady, mineral rich iron and sun-set red. Complex in a way that even Earth's most prominent medical authorities could never even _hope _to understand.

"No! – Oh god..._Shit_! - Parrish!"

Long lashes ghosted across the deepening hollows that stood out below his eyes. He could almost feel it, the way the facade was slowly beginning to crumble. With his lashes morphing into feather light pin pricks that clumped and stuck together as they skated across blood spattered skin. - But as ghastly as it might have looked, it was to be expected. There was just too much damage. Too many main arteries had been hit. - The odd arterial spray must have all but drenched him by now. He could only imagine what he must look like… - What Evan must being thinking…

Either way, it wouldn't be long now. It wouldn't be long before light blue irises would be replaced, morphing into vicious silver, and blood-shot crimson. Before his canines would drop down, slithering out from the gums to flirt with the delicate skin just below his lips. Promising both desperation and violence in turn as the urge to feed only grew stronger.

- He needed it._ Blood_. He needed to-

"Parrish, god damnit look at me!"

He blinked. _Was someone talking to him?_ - Confusion flowed through him in a series of jarring, disconnected waves as a shadow-strewn figure he hadn't even noticed before now, shifted above him.

Familiarity rippled across the surface of his conscious mind. Brain struggling to recognize the compact, muscular form even as it hunched over him, blocking out the sunlight as a swath of scratchy, cotton fabric fell across the length of his neck. Blunt fingers and calloused palms slipping across his blood smeared skin as the beige cloth abruptly disappeared and a sudden burst of pressure blossomed across the span of his ruined chest.

_He knew those hands._

His nostrils flared and suddenly he was all but drowning in the other man's scent. It was a jumbled up diaspora of spent gun oil and caffeine drenched adrenaline. A virtual melding pot of violence and unexpected gentleness as the tang of raw Kevlar and muted after shave almost overwhelmed the tenuous siren song of unoxygenated blood, and bitter sweat.

He smelled fear, anger, grief, and determination. The scent of panic oozing sour and stagnant in the background, churning like the threat of bile even as the tempered, sweet edged softness of an emotion he couldn't quite define rose to the forefront. - It was light, transparent even, but undeniably present all the same..

He got stuck on it. Stalling over the complexity of it as the blunt, callous rimmed fingers returned. - Pressing, rubbing, and pulling at his skin as desperation ran rampant. The stink of fear only rising as the world regressed, breaking down into roaring echoes and wordless cries that seemed obscenely out of place in the warm summer air.

Static buzzed around the edges of his vision.

_It wouldn't be long now.. He wouldn't be able to hold it back.._

His gum line ached, canines throbbing as his baser nature fought to make itself known. Burbling to the forefront as his senses sharpened. The hunger lancing through him as he fought for control.. He had to focus_.__ -__ Think__ of__ something __else._

…That tempered sweetness? That emotion without a name? …_Yes.__ - _Think of that…

- He was somewhere in the middle of trying to find his way back to that strange, unknown little emotion when awareness finally slammed home.

…Oh god no… – _Evan__…_

**A/N:** Sorry this is so short, it is more like a teaser introduction then anything else. *Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

_"It__ is __worth __dying__ to __find__ out __what __life __is."__ -_T.S. Eliot


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author****'****s**** note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish__ -__ Parrish __is__ a__ vampire.__"_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Two_

The implications of the man's presence were almost incomprehensible. And for a long second his brain simply refused to internalize it. - Because Evan _couldn__'__t_ be here… Not now. _Not __like__ this._ He'd see.. - He'd see _everything__…_

And as he laid there, spread-eagled and helpless underneath the branches of a remarkably ordinary looking _Acer__tataricum_. Sluggish eyes tracking the sunlight as it shone through the gaps of those wide, maple-like leaves. Bathing the thin, translucent membranes in that iconic, warm green glow that he knew better then most people did their own heart beat. - He realized that maybe this time; it really was all over…

Because despite over a hundred and fifteen years of near misses and close calls, he could think of no way he was going to get out of this without Lorne knowing. In fact, that was the best case scenario. - And the best case scenario, he was sure, involved at the very least, losing _everything_.

…Lorne's trust, friendship, that easy going camaraderie that had lately begun leaning towards an awkward, but growingly oblivious flirtation. His job. _Atlantis_. - Hell, maybe even his life. - That was what he was going to lose. And all because of some freak chance in a million that he would get blind sided by a load of shrapnel in a fire fight.

_Figures,__ really__…_ He never did seem to have any luck in the field. It was always dead wraith, mind altering pollen, angry natives, or the occasional overly affectionate herd of those carnivorous cow-giraffe-like things from RTX-94E. Apparently Dobson had been right after all. Maybe he _should_ have just cut his losses and let Katie start going off world.

But of course he hadn't. Because he was a stupid, love struck fool that hoarded both his time off world and his time spent alone with the other man like a stock broker does gold shares during a recession. And he'd delighted in every single moment of it. - In every coaxed smile and unguarded laugh. In every lingering conversation spent over lunch, disastrous fire arms lesson at the range, or half an hour training session in the gym. Good, bad, or ugly he'd taken them all. .._Wanted__ them __all. _- And now he was going to pay for it.

…Stupid really. He never should have let himself get so close. He'd known the risks. He'd know what even the smallest slip would mean…

- But the thing was that when it had all come down to it, he hadn't even hesitated. _Not__ once._

They had been cut off from both the gate and the rest of their team when a whole company of Wraith, likely fifteen strong had come marching through the event horizon. - It had been bad. _Really__ bad._ The kind of bad that generally involved things like city wide alerts and McKay shutting his trap for more the five seconds at a time. The kind of bad that most Scientists could only ever gossip about after hours, safe in the mess hall with full bellies and nice air conditioned rooms. The kind of bad that means empty work stations and packing crates that slowly stack up outside of previously occupied rooms. - The kind of bad where the word 'FUBAR' just doesn't seem to do the situation justice…

There had been far too many to fight. It had happened too suddenly and being cut off from one another they were far too vulnerable. It hadn't taken long for Lorne to call a strategic, scattered retreat. Ordering the others to circle back around to the gate and dial back to Atlantis as able. They had been the farthest a field when it'd happened, heading out towards the farthest mapped quadrant to collect samples and thus they were the last group to make their way back.

Everything had gone off seamlessly, with Reed and Coplin, then Burnett and Sampson all slipping through the gate undetected, under orders to inform command to stand down. With Lorne deciding to vie for secrecy rather then confrontation when it seemed as though the Wraith were no more aware of their presence than the planets abundant flora and fauna based Eco-system.

– …Or at least they had been until the Wraith had caught up with them that is…

He'd lost count of how many rounds he'd fired, using his superior vision and reflexes to subtly alter his shots. Taking down nearly as many as Lorne with his side arm as the Marine unloaded his P-90 into the encroaching mob. – …Let it not be said that Marines don't give as good as they get… That's for damn sure.

Lorne had taken out the last two, a drone and the last remaining master with a cluster of explosive grenades and few liberal sprays of gunfire. - …Or so they'd thought anyway. Because just as Lorne had motioned for him to stay put. Advancing out from the rocky outcropping they'd taken over behind, in one last act of merciless defiance, the Wraith had lobbed their remaining egg-shaped charges and set their self destructs to maximum.

The resulting explosion had been so massive that his keen senses had actually felt the first tingling atoms of the shock wave as it rolled through the ground at their feet. Microscopic vibrations that coursed up his legs and into his bones long before the sound could even so much as form.

Realization hit a split second before it happened. His eyes taking in the way the man was whirling on the spot, turning to run back the way he'd came as the high pitched whine of those wailing, self destructs pierced through the heavy, summer air. - The man's face a wrecked canvas of too wide eyes and a knowing grimace, squinting into the glare as their eyes met from across the distance.

– _He__ wasn__'__t__ going__ to __make__ it.__ Lorne__ wasn__'__t__ going __to-__…_

He hadn't even thought it through. There had been no doubt, no hesitation, or even a single moment of second guessing. Because faster then a blink, he'd hit the Major running. Sending the man catapulting out of the way just in time as the percussive force of the explosion caught him full on, sending him flying backwards, caught in the middle of a hellish whirlwind of shrapnel and debris. – So fast that he hadn't even had a moment to cry out…

But even then, as he'd slammed to the ground with punishing force, chest caught in a vice grip as the scent of raw wood and singed pine sap rose like fire in his senses… - His last conscious thoughts before the blackness overtook him was of the strangled yell that had ripped up from Lorne's throat. Screaming his name into the alien, summer heat long before the rain of debris had stopped falling.

- He was jolted back to reality when blood slick fingers fell across his neck, searching out his pulse as his heart hushed sluggishly. The rhythm sporadic and almost sullen as the vibrations echoed oddly through his ruined rib cage. – Heart still beating despite the odds. Thrumming along as _unnaturally_ as ever despite the fact that his lungs, and perhaps almost every other rather important organ he possessed, had been all but obliterated by the jagged, blood smeared shard of tree trunk that was now embedded where his chest used to be.

His lids shuddered. Flickering open once, then twice, as the familiar curve of the man's face took shape. Because Lorne was still hovering over him, skin speckled with his blood, and hands drenched up to the wrists as he wrapped tensor bandages around the edges of the wound. Securing the chunk of wood as tightly as possible as he tried to stem the worst of the bleeding.

And even then he had to wonder, the thought drifting through his mind in subtle, paper thin whispers. - If he was really just _that_ far gone, or that spite of the blood, he _swore_ that Lorne had never looked more _beautiful__…_

- …Or maybe he was just a _pervert_. Being what he was, it was rather hard to tell sometimes…

"That's it, look at me. Good… You're doing great." Lorne murmured, eyes flashing panic fueled blue as he ducked his head, avoiding eye contact for a long second as the man visibly fought to maintain his composure.

_He really wasn't, but he appreciated the pep talk all the same._

His long fingers curled into the dirt, desperate for something to ground him against the stinging pain and growing hunger as the man pressed against him. All eager skin and thudding heart beats. He could smell him. _All__ of__ him._ The man, the life humming just underneath that lightly tanned skin. _…__God._ He needed to get away, he needed to-

- He coughed convulsively as blood frothed up from what was left of his lungs. The action sending a few errant streams trickling down from his parted lips as he sucked in a breath he really didn't need to take. - Pure habit he supposed.

The man seemed to have about eight hands. Because there were fingers kneading into his scalp, lifting his head to help him breathe, as shaking fingers moved up to slap against his jugular once again. - Because time was doing that silly, jumping thing and Lorne was starting to get that confused little frown between his eyes whenever he went too long without inhaling. …_Shit._

Lorne's hands gently lifted his right side, working a torn strip from one of their jackets underneath him as calming murmurs lapsed off into confusing echoes. The pain bringing him back a moment later as the man secured the strip around the wound. He hissed low in this throat as the movement sent pain lancing through him.

- Unable to hold it back as the man grunted an apology from somewhere above him, too busy with the bandages to notice that no normal human throat could ever make such a noise in the first place. It could be explained away of course, as air leaving punctured lungs or the man merely hearing things in the heat of the moment. But that didn't change the fact that it had happened in the first place.

_He was losing control. He had to get away.._

But it was too late anyway. A human would have been dead by now. Dead on _impact_ in fact_._ - He wondered how long it would take before Lorne forced himself to face that growingly inescapable little tid-bit. The man had to know that even the most fluke, off-kilter chance of actually surviving a wound this grievous could have never gone this far. He should have been dead. _Only__ he __wasn__'__t_.

- As it was he was already pushing his luck and he knew it.

"Damnit Parrish. Stay with me!" Lorne snarled. Voice pitch heavy and high as he worked feverishly, slicing his shucked jacket into wide swatches with his K-bar in order to make more bandages.

And in spite of it all he nearly laughed at that. The liquidly chuckle getting caught somewhere deep in his throat as his lungs rebelled halfway through. - Because ironically, he really _wasn__'__t_ going anywhere. And that was pretty much the _crux_ of the whole god damn problem…

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

_"What __the__ caterpillar __calls__ the __end__ of __the__ world,__ the__ master__ calls__ a __butterfly."__-_Richard Bach


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash/slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author****'****s ****note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish__ -__ Parrish__ is __a__ vampire__"_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Three_

In a lot of ways it was exactly like Fight Club. - _You__ didn__'__t__ talk __about __it_.

Only instead of an underground club of grown men beating the stuffing out of each other, it was a secret race. …_A__ secret__ species._ It was how they'd survived through the centuries that marked the birth of mankind and its slow arrival into the modern era. – Because despite all the grand standing and blatant egotism that existed in the vampiric community, the truth was that vampires were a species that had existed _along__ side_ humanity since the very beginning.

No one was exactly sure when the species first came into being. If you asked, most would say that vampirism had evolved first. Purely out of pride and an over inflated sense of self importance of course. But more recently, a group of relatively unbiased researchers had infamously proposed that given their biological similarities it was quite likely that both species had simply evolved together. Rather then one existing before the other.

Naturally the findings hadn't gone over well in the vampiric community. Especially from the covens that were still spread across most of Eastern Europe. Groups, who if given half the chance would also claim that their blood was more pure. As if coming from some perceived sense of 'higher stock' then those who had either immigrated, or been born in the colonies during the colonization of North and South America.

- Hypocrisy and grandstanding, it would seem, were apparently failings inherent to _both _their species. ..Darwin would have been proud.

However, there was at least one undeniable reality that existed between that of the vampires and the human race that no one, not even the insufferable poufs from across the Atlantic could deny. And it all came down to numbers, to population comparisons and birthing percentages. Vampires had _always_ been far less numerous then humans. It was a cold, hard fact. No one knew exactly why, whether it was biology or simply practicality. But vampires had never existed in any significant numbers. Not enough to be discovered at any rate.

_And just to clear it all up, they sure as hell didn't sparkle._

Unsurprisingly most of the legends and myths that detailed the extent of vampire lore had gotten it completely wrong. …_Mostly._ - Crosses and holy water? _Laughable_. Garlic? _Delicious_. Stake to the heart? _Nope__…__well__ not__ usually_. Sunlight? _Eventually. _Beheading? _Definitely._ The brain was the key. Almost everything else a vampire could generally recover from. It all depended on how recently they'd fed, and how old they actually were.

- And oh yeah, all that living forever crap? Complete dribble. Nothing lived forever. Not even the pure bloods. …_It__ was__ just__ how __nature__ worked._

But perhaps the biggest indication that Bram Stoker had been grievously misinformed related to the fact that you couldn't just be _turned._Being a race rather then a virus, you were either _born_ a vampire or you weren't at all. It was pure genetics. Forget all the crap they'd churned out in Hollywood. There wasn't a lick of truth about it. – And in that way the whole shebang acted more like a curse then anything else. Because you _couldn__'__t_ turn a lover or a friend. _Even__ if__ you __wanted__ to._ The bite only took, draining blood and sometimes even life itself if you weren't careful. It was a fine line, one that he'd learned the hard way, more then once..

But just like the inscrutable nature of life itself, sometimes genetics and the extent of known science meant absolutely _dick_. – And that was where _he _came in, because he was one of those anomalies. – A strange, but ultimately inconsequential blip in a dying genetic code.

- Because he'd been_ born_ human.

It had been 1891. The self proclaimed year of promise when he'd stuck out on his own from Lost Nation, Illinois, heart set on making it to Chicago proper. He'd been fresh faced and barely thirty years old, with five seasons worth of farm earnings jingling in his trouser pockets and most of his worldly possessions crammed into the pack on his back when he'd set out for the big city.

At the time, rumor had it at that Mr. John D. Rockefeller himself was planning on building a university out in the city. One that would have both the prestige and funds to make his dreams of studying medicine more then just idle hoping and star-dust. The clippings he'd painstakingly saved from the newspapers had advertised it in full. They were looking for talent first and money second. And while he certainly didn't have the later, he knew for sure that god had granted him with the former. At the time, it had seemed like a dream come true.

…Only he'd never made it there.

He'd been bitten by a feral less then a week after leaving home. He hadn't stood a chance against it. Confusion, panic, old world fear, hell, as far as he'd been concerned it had been the devil himself that had chased him away from his camp site. Hunting him like a flighty spring buck all the way into the farthest reaches of the brush. Taking him deep into the woods so that no one would be able hear his screams before it'd struck.

He hadn't even seen its face. All he'd seen of the bastard was a few panicked glimpses of rough edged stubble and a rumpled long coat. Eyes-teeth gleaming sharp and vicious in the dying light before the creature brought him down into the mouldering forest floor, tearing into the vulnerable curve of his naked throat before he could even so much as scream. - Slicing his shirt collar away as razor sharp teeth pierced through his flesh, sending his nerve endings ablaze as blood and saliva mixed together, body lurching and jerking into the creatures hold as the devil had taken its fill.

_- And the pain. Oh god the pain.. It had been unlike anything he'd ever experienced. It had felt like poison. Like dying… Like the inner most fires of hell itself… - And it had only gotten worse from there…_

He'd been drained to the point of death and left to bleed out. And he would have, if not for Gerald and Marie. – Out hunting themselves, they'd found him while he was still screaming. Lying face down and half drowned in a partially congealed puddle of his own blood and piss. Body already burning as the change coursed through him.

They hadn't expected him to live. Much less change. But they'd spirited him back to their lodgings regardless. Tending to him personally, purely out of their own kind heartedness as the fever burned within him. Determined that if he was to die by the hand of one of their own, then he should at least be awarded whatever decency and comfort they could provide as he passed.

Only he hadn't died. – At least not in the strictest sense.

Because it had been there, in the comfort and obscurity of their modest town house, surrounded by beings he could barely bring himself to understand, that his body had rippled. Sending him screaming and writhing as the wildness grew within him, clawing at Gerald, at Marie, his bindings, the bed, whatever he could reach as his body rebelled. - Changing right down to the microscopic level as his wounds suddenly healed. Skin knitting together like it had never been torn apart in the first place. All mere seconds before those sharp fangs had ripped through his gum line.

His new, unnaturally long canines had stood out stark and vicious in the low light, sending whatever was left of his rational, conscious mind fleeing into the blackness. – Until the sharpness had split right through his lower lip. And he'd hissed his fear, confusion, and defiance into the fire warmed air as Gerald held him down. Baring his own teeth as he'd soothed him with gravel-studded purrs and calming murmurs. Answering his threatening growls and pain filled snarls with a few well placed snaps of his teeth, as the family patriarch had forced him back down into the blankets. Gentle, but undeniably firm every time he struggled to break free.

He'd been completely helpless against it. _The__ hunger._ Yowling and hissing like a wild thing as his vision hazed over with red. Eyes going blood shot and silver rimmed as the blood lust swept over him with all the force of a surging ocean tide. He could think of nothing else but the hunger. _The__ need. _He'd been beyond all reason. Nothing else mattered save for the need to feed. - The instinctual urge for more, more, _more_…

In the end they'd done the only thing they could think of to do. _They__'__d __met__ his __need._ With Marie disappearing into the night and returning no more then a score of moments later, purse stuffed to the brim with flasks of still warm animal's blood. - Hurrying to his side before curling him into her chest, holding him to her as if he were no more then a child. Her hold protective but firm as she'd sprinkled the first tentative drops across his fever dry lips. Ignoring his bared teeth as she'd nudged the spout against against his aching gums. Patient and loving, like mother dealing with a fussy toddler.

And God help him but he'd fallen upon it. Ripping into the flask and drinking his fill as life had slammed back into his burning veins. Roaring his hunger into the arching wooden beams as he'd hurled himself into the closest corner, growling and whimpering in turn as he drank. Ravenous and half feral as one flask became two, then three as his saviors crouched down beside him. Lulling him with sharp hisses and soothing words, desperate to get through to him, on _both_ levels as the flasks were quickly drained.

- And for better or worse, with the satiation of the hunger came a measure of sanity as well. With his mind, his thoughts all rushing back. Sending him lurching back into reality with what felt like the _mother_ of all hangovers.

Because the reality of it was that he'd come back to himself half naked and surrounded by strangers. His fingers blood slick and shaking as he'd licked them clean. Gulping down the last trickling mouthfuls as the sudden realization that _nothing_ would ever be the same hit him like an unexpected kiss from a pretty girl on May Day.

As one might imagine the resulting conversation that had taken place as Gerald and Marie had tried their best to explain had gone… - _Well_, lets just say it hadn't been one his _proudest_ moments. – Not that his reaction had been entirely unjustified mind you. He hadn't asked for this. And all else considered he hadn't deserved it either. But that didn't change the fact that after that day he had to figure how to _live_ with it.

But he had been blessed from the start, with Marie and Gerald having taken him in as one of their own, all but adopting him into their brood of over twenty-five children with barely a ripple of fuss. – It had been everyone else that had been the problem.

The elders really hadn't known what to do with him at first. He was a rarity, a freak even to them. And while past history and ancient lore had sporadically documented the phenomenon throughout the intervening centuries, only a small number of the ancient ones had ever lived through such an event. But as he'd adjusted, gradually coming to grips with the complexities of his new life, a grudging sort of acceptance had eventually formed.

_He wasn't really one of them. To most of them he never would be. But at the same time he wasn't exactly human either._

Owen, Gerald and Marie's third youngest had probably hit it right on the nail a few years after he'd been turned. Remarking after a petty and somewhat childish display of disdain he'd suffered at the hands of a visiting, Prussian dignitary. That it probably came down to pure, unrifled jealousy in the end, with him having retained his ability to wander unharmed in the direct sunlight while the pure bloods were forced to remain in the shadows. Indeed in a way it seemed as though he'd lucked out, getting the best of both worlds as it were. _Human__ and__ vampire._

_Except for the blood lust... Nothing made up for that._

But save for that and the avoidance of sunlight, most vampires were relatively normal. They went to work, paid their taxes; they were farmers, lawyers, doctors, hell even teachers. They had human friends and held human jobs. - Most invested. You'd be surprised at how important investments and managing your money were with that of longevity, especially considering their facetious and somewhat elegant tastes. They were often wealthy yet not overwhelmingly so, never enough to cause undue attention, existing as mere shadows on everyone else's radars.

- The point was, you could live right next to one and generally notice little more about them other then the fact that they didn't do many summer beach trips.

Like Gerald and Marie, most of them lived on animal blood, the blood bank, and the occasional human indulgence. Not just because it was moralistic mind you, but because it was practical. It maintained the secret, barely. - Because the truth was that animal blood was like drinking _saw__dust_ next to the _real_ thing. There was nothing in the world that could compare with the tart richness of a freshly tapped vein. Nothing sated the hunger the same way either.

But like humans, they had their fair share of bad nuts. - Like his unknown maker, there were those that killed and maimed for the sheer pleasure of it, draining the innocent and undeserving with nary a second thought, slaughtering them like humans did cattle simply to keep themselves happy and fed. – And without Marie and Gerald that was what he _could_ have become, especially given the violent nature in which he'd been made. - The instinct to hunt, to drain…to _feed_ was often too strong…

From the beginning he'd tried to separate himself from it. Like it _wasn__'__t_ him. Like what had happened had simply created two separate people, one vampire and one human. Marie and Gerald hadn't thought it was healthy of course, but they had understood it. It had been his way of coping. And besides, they were always there when he inevitably crashed and burned. Making sure he didn't do anything he'd later regret as they took him hunting. Giving him his head only when they'd reached the deepest reaches the wilderness. Letting him hunt and feed until the hunger had been appeased and he could regain a semblance of himself once again.

It had taken him nearly four decades to achieve that balance. To find it in himself to accept both what he'd lost, and what he had become. – But in the end, if he was being honest, he knew what helped him cope the most. It was the knowledge that despite instinct, despite the pull and the urge to feed, at the end of the day he had a _choice_. It was often a hard one to make, but it was a choice nonetheless.

Gerald and Marie were prime examples of this conscious decision. Their instincts… their _hunger_ were far more potent then his own. Yet they lived a life of virtual non-violence, as did most of their brood. They abhorred harming the innocent and he had clung to that morality like a lifeline.

_Fate had not destined him to be a monster, if he so chose it._

Every once and a while however, mistakes were made. It was a fact of life when good intentions and instinct consistently butted heads. But at the end of the day if the max-security prison in some small, out of the way town was suddenly bereft of its most notorious offenders, rarely anyone ever batted an eye over it. And when put against their past crimes, the guilt was remarkably fast fading.

-…He wondered if he could even_ hope_ to make Lorne understand. He wondered-..

"Don't you do this to me Parrish. …- Fucking stay with me!"

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

**A/N****#2:** Wafflefu – Thank you for your lovely comment. I fear though that I have no idea what 'purple' means in this context. Hee.

_"Death __is __just__ a __change__ in __lifestyles."__ -_Stephen Levine


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author****'****s**** note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish__ -__ Parrish__ is__ a__ vampire__"_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Four_

He found his tongue somewhere in the intervening moments, mind spiraling outward as reality proved almost impossible to avoid. Startling the both of them as he almost snarled into the stillness. Unable to stop the sound as his canines shivered, throbbing just underneath the gums as the man pulled the last makeshift bandage tight around the wound. Shredding the torn flesh even further as the man's well meant actions nearly sent him over the edge.

A genuine, pain-filled grimace flashed across his face, before he could push it back. Collecting what was left of his control before he forced his eyes to focus, meeting the man's gaze with as much strength as he could muster. Not even noticing the action as one of his blood smeared hands curled around the Major's bicep. Dripping fingers inadvertently smearing danger red across the Major's lightly tanned flesh. - As if trying to prove his point through the strength of the action itself as he readied himself to speak.

"Major.. - Just.._Go_. Bring back a medical team. You can get there and back on foot in time." He hissed, clutched onto a final ray of hope as the man riffled through his pack. Vaguely thinking that with the man gone he could remove the stake and drain some small creature, enough to lessen the damage to something a human could plausibly recover from. _A__ proverbial__ long__ shot__ of __course,__ but __it __was __all__ he __had._

Under the circumstances it was a damn good plan. - Inspired, risky, but admittedly brilliant. Especially considering he had a massive shard of tree trunk shoved clear through his chest cavity and was likely suffering from a rather dangerous amount of blood loss by now. _Even __for__ him._

However said plan had one, rather fatal flaw. - Lorne wasn't going for it.

_The man was as handsome as he was stubborn. _

"What? No way Doc. I'm not leaving you. I'll drag your skinny ass all the way to the gate if I have to. - Beckett is going patch you right up, and then you and I are going to have a long…_long_ talk about scientist versus soldier dynamics." Lorne began. Blood speckled arms tensing under his tenuous hold he refused to let the man go. Frustration rising as Lorne all but bull dozed through his spluttering attempts to change his mind.

"_I__'__m_ the one that's supposed to be saving _your_ ass, remember?" The man finished shakily, eyes blood shot and blown far too wide as panicked fingered drew the last knot of bandages just a little bit tighter around him.

He could have cursed.

"Major.._Lorne._ I'll be fine_._But you need to get Beckett -." He tried, only to get cut off a second later as the man's fingers curled around his shoulders.

"You get that right out of your head, Doc. I've got you." The man affirmed, hands wrapping around his shoulders as he supported his neck through a sudden hacking cough. Spitting up blood and god knows what else as a steady stream started to dribble out the corners of his mouth.

_He was running out of time.._

It was useless to argue, that much was abundantly clear. He could see it in the man's eyes. - The hard headed finality of it. Whether the man was going to be true to his word and carry him back to Atlantis bridal style, or stay with him till the end, the conclusion was the same. The man wasn't going anywhere.

– Stupid, insufferable jackass that he was…

"I guess that's what I get for breaking the mould." He ventured jokingly. Liquid gurgling worrisomely all the way up his windpipe as he coughed out the last few words. Regretting his attempt at levity a moment later when Lorne looked stricken.

_Way to bring on the confidence David._

He heard the man's breathing hitch. Muttering just under his breath as he cast his eyes around them, looking for anything to aid them as the Lorne's fingers dug deep into lean length of his shoulder. The action thoughtless and desperate in it's sincerity as the man wormed closer to his side, as if by mere presence alone he could somehow keep him from slipping away.

And in spite of it all, he couldn't help but smile, the emotion tugging the corners of his lips upwards in a wry little grin. He'd been a vampire for over hundred and fifteen years and a human for little more then thirty. And in all that time, he'd never met anyone quite like Major Evan Lorne.

He'd outlived many friends, his family, and past lovers. He'd buried them, kept them safe, and had loved them all very deeply. But_ this_..this was different. It had been from the very beginning. He couldn't place it. He couldn't define it. _He__ just __knew_.

– And that was why he hadn't been able to help himself. He never had. Not when it came to Lorne. - Because like a moth to the flame, he'd willingly courted disaster. Regardless of the cost. Regardless of the risks and the reality of what he was. He'd been too greedy, and ultimately too damn selfish to do the right thing and just let the man go. To feign disinterest and distance, if he had perhaps they wouldn't have been stuck in this mess. Maybe if he'd-

But in the end it didn't matter, all the excuses and wishes that things could have turned out differently. _None__ of __it._ Because this was_ his_ fault, these were the consequences of _his_ actions and his alone. And now he had to face them.

_And yet…_

- Funny how he couldn't even bring himself to regret it, regardless of the cost. God help him but he didn't regret a god damned _second_.

…Because somehow, in spite of it all, it really didn't seem so strange that it would be Evan. That a hundred and fifteen years of lies and secrecy, half truths and painstaking care would all come down to_ this _moment. Where blue eyes met blue eyes as each of them fell apart in their own separate way.

The fates had always had a wicked sense of humor, tricky bastards that they were. – After all they created _him._ A long-limbed, sun kissed, hyper active disaster of a vampire. Who was undeniably and quite inexcusably enamored with a certain muscle bound Major, a solider with an artist's soul. - If that wasn't fuel to the fires of irony he didn't know _what_ was.

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

_"The __boundaries__ between__ life__ and __death __are __at__ best__ shadowy __and__ vague.__ Who__ shall__ say __where __one __ends __and __where__ the__ other__ begins?"__ -_ Edgar Allen Poe


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author****'****s**** note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish__ -__ Parrish__ is __a__ vampire__"_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Five_

A frustrated growl rose up in his throat, rattling through him as few lingering tendrils of adrenaline arrowed through his mangled veins. – He bit his lips, decision made. It would seem that there was nothing else for it. …_Shit._

He had to do this right. He'd been around long enough to know how people reacted in situations like. In moments were fear, loss, and confusion mixed together with guns and adrenaline. – Unsurprisingly it goes without saying that they made crappy bed fellows. Fear and the unfamiliar went hand in hand. And violence was a knee-jerk reaction that rode on the coat tails of fear. It was as central to humanity as breathing. A self defense mechanism if you will. It was what told you to run, told you to turn and fight if the situation called for it. It was an instinct, a gut reaction that had kept the human species alive since the very beginning.

- And that was why he knew that somehow…in _some__way_ he _had_ to make Lorne understand. – Because if he didn't, it was very likely that they'd _both_ do something they'd later regret…

"Major. Major. _– __Evan!_" He yelled, finally getting the man's attention as the man's head whipped up. Startled by the insistence in his voice as the soldier's pulse started jack rabbitting, sending the sweet, delicious thrum of blood and adrenaline singing through the man's throbbing veins. He could sense it, flowing just underneath the man's skin.

…_God.._ He needed to-…

But he pushed it away, blinking away dilated pupils and keeping his lips firmly pressed around his aching gums as he met Lorne's eyes from across the tangled in the web of tensor bandages. Trying to ignore the way the man's wide palms were pressing against the sides. - Putting more and more pressure on the wound despite the fact that by this point it would have been akin to trying to mend a tear in the Titanic with a screwdriver. - And while he appreciated the sentiment, the man's efforts were useless. - Even if he _had_ been human.

_Besides, there was only one thing he could do now. _

"Evan. No Evan! _Look __at __me_. Look… Do you trust me?" He began, fingers fluttering up the sides of the wound even as he spoke. Curling around the outer edges of the nearest bandage as he made his way closer to the shard by touch alone, refusing to look away from the other man for even a second as Lorne balked above him.

"What? Are you crazy? – Hey! Don't touch that!" Evan shot back, eyes sharpening with confusion as the man gently tried to pry his fingers off the blood matted bandages. Frown lines only deepening when he realized he couldn't move them an inch. – Using his superior strength to his advantage as he quickly captured both the man's hands in a soft but inescapable grip. - Forcing the man to focus solely on him as he spoke.

"Do. You. _Trust_. Me." He demanded, words hissing from his lips even as a fresh stream of blood flooded up between the gaps of his teeth. - Bathing both his lips and teeth in frothy soup of deadly crimson as he caught the man's gaze and refused to release him. …_Lorne__ had__ to __understand.._

"Parrish…_David.._ You are scaring me." The man managed, lips parting as if paused in the act of saying something more as his eyes strayed down to their joined hands.

"Don't be frightened… _Just_, promise me.. - Whatever happens, don't be frightened." He whispered, meeting Lorne's gaze a final time before he lurched upwards, pushing the man as far away as he could manage. - Forcing him backwards with an almost violent shove as he bent his knees and planted his feet deep into the dirt.

"Parrish! What the hell are you doin-."

But he didn't respond. It was too late anyway. Because with a single, desperation fueled growl he summoned up his remaining strength. Letting long fingers curl around the ragged, blood soaked shard even as his canines dropped, shivering down from his gums as the change rippled through him…

"What the _fuck_! – Parrish!"

But the man's yell was distant, a mere buzz on the edges of his periphery hearing. Meaningless and unimportant when put beside the pain. In fact he only vaguely took in the way Lorne was toppling over backwards, hands curling reflectively around the stock of his P-90 as he stumbled backwards, movements panic fueled and sloppy as his boot treads slipped across the blood slicked gravel. Sending dirt and grit puffing into the air as his lips pulled back in a silent snarl. - The acidic flatness of pulverized rock grating against his fangs like a warning as he snarled into the close summer air.

It didn't take long after that. Because within seconds that iconic, fine red mist had overwhelmed his vision, the vibrant color only fueling his blood lust as the hunger rose within him. – Making him bare his teeth with a ferocity he hadn't felt for close to three decades as he seized the center of the stake and wrenched it upwards. Ripping the damned thing free with a single, vicious movement, painting them both with a spray of blood and god only knows what else as it pulled free with the sickening crack of shattered bone and blood slicked flesh..

…And he'd be lying if his pained howl _hadn__'__t_ echoed through the tree line. Shocking the busy forest canopy into a sudden, uneasy silence as the echoes compounded on one another, chasing the tail edges of the ones that had come before as the entire forest fell deathly still... – As if the Gods themselves had stopped to hold their breath….

"…Jesus _fucking_ Christ…" Lorne whispered. Voice gravel deep and raw as it floated up from somewhere around the area of his left thigh, just outside of his field of vision. – And for that he was absurdly grateful, because he _didn__'__t _want to see the Major's face right now. He didn't know if he'd be able to bear it…

Instead he just panted on the ground, letting the chunk of wood slip out of his hands as he concentrated on simply breathing. All too aware of the way the light breeze was curling around his elongated canines. Flirting with the softness of his lips as an errant tongue swiped through the taste of smelted copper. - And for a long time he simply laid there. Letting the silence breathe…. – Slowly collecting the tattered remnants of his control as the sound of the man's racing heart echoed out into the silence like the tempting chorus of some long forgotten song…

"What… - _What_ _are_.._you_?" Lorne finally asked, stumbling over his own tongue as he spoke. - The words sounded heavy. Half suffocated amidst a tangled up ball of panic fueled betrayal as he forced himself to face them.

Willing himself to rise above the hurt and growing confusion as he blinked sluggish, crimson hued irises into the heady afternoon light. Closing them momentarily as the sound of calloused fingers sliding down the sides of gun tainted metal tickled his ear drums. - Filling the air with the scent of unspent cartridges, singed gun oil, and the tangy musk of a nervous human sweat.

"…Complicated." He finally wheezed. Letting long, deceptively slender fingers dig into the ground as he forced himself to turn away. Trying to forget the sound of the man's echoing heart beat as sharp nails pierced through the thick earthy sod, sending the smell of an entirely different kind of life rising in his senses.

_- Because really, what else was he supposed to say?_

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

_"No__ trumpets__ sound __when __the __important__ decisions__ of__ our__ life__ are__ made.__ Destiny __is __made__ known__ silently."__-_ Agnes de Mille


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author****'****s ****note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"__Lorne/Parrish __-__ Parrish __is__ a__ vampire.__"_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Six_

Now free of the obstruction, he could feel the edges of the wound start to harden. His body futilely trying to heal, struggling to knit both flesh and bone as the action itself dug deep into his last reserves of control. - But he knew it wouldn't work. Not without help. It was like trying to start a car with nothing but a gas tank full of rust and the ghosts of long expelled fumes. - Even now he could feel his body weakening. The cells beginning to shrink and twist as every nerve in his body sang for the bitterness of copper. - For the tartness of living crimson sliding down his eager throat like a warm drink on a cold, winter's day. The need was almost too much now..

– The wound was too big. It was too much for his drained body to manage alone. His head swum, lolling weakly and his vision flickered. – _Blood.._. He had to-..

His pupils flickered, dilating back down into that perverse, silver rimmed crimson as the points of his canines caught against the ghost of his chin as he tucked his neck into his chest. Reflectively averting his eyes from the sharp intake of breath as the man caught another glimpse of his canines. - He didn't want to see it. …The fear, the horror, disgust and betrayal. - He knew it was there. It always was..

_Blood__… _He needed to-…

Even now, he could sense it, the rich, fast paced hum of Evan's blood rushing just underneath his skin. The mere sound alone was enough to make his canines ache. – And he cursed himself as he tried to remember how long it had been since he'd last fed. _Too__ long_. Not enough. It was _never_ enough.

The Major's blood had always been tempting, but now…_God!_ - Every instinct, every impulse, and every god damned urge he had was screaming for it. – _To__ strike,__ drink,__ and__ claim.__ – _And yet, it was more then that, a lot more. Because it wasn't just the need, the blood or even the hunger, _it__ was __Evan_. It had _always_ been Evan. He couldn't remember having ever wanted another human's blood so badly, and it had been like that since the first day they'd met. Warmly shaking hands in the briefing room just two days before their scheduled mission to P3M-736. - _The__ first__ mission__ of__ many._

_NO._

It was sheer will power that had him turning away, hands clutching at the grass and reeds as he yanked himself around. Forcing himself to turn away from the delicious thrum. From the heart beat that promised life as he struggled towards to edge of the clearing on autopilot.

- Blood red blinders creating a murky, crimson haze as he kept his eyes glued on the tree line. Too far gone to push back the change as saliva pooled, soaking his palate as his mind raced. ..Already fast forwarding to the taste of warm animal blood flooding across his tongue. – And god, you know things are fucked up when you're _that_ worked up about _animal_ blood. Lord, Owen would have a bloody field day if he ever heard about this..

But he hadn't made it more four meters when a pair of tentative but determined hands fell across his shoulders, stopping him dead in his tracks as skittish human warmth sunk deep into the unnatural chill of his paling skin. He hadn't been expecting that. With the sensation alone being enough to cause his arms to buckle, sending him slumping back into the dirt and mouldering vegetation. Unable to summon the strength to turn himself over as Lorne hesitantly did it for him. Moving him so that the small of his back was resting against the crux of the man's bent knees. The man's thick, blunt fingers fluttering spasmodically around the edges of the jagged, oozing hole in his chest. Apparently at a loss as to what he should do next as the man made to speak.

"Dav-…Parrish…- What are you doing?" Lorne questioned. His voice authoritative and strong, but it was the word choice that gave the man away. Confusion, fear, anger, care, anxiety, professional calm, it was all there, milling on the edges of the man's tone as his hands curled around his lean shoulders.

"Blood. I _need_ to.. _Please_ - Let me.." He muttered, fingers pulling uselessly at the long grass, weakly trying to yank himself away. Almost begging, pleading with Lorne to understand, to just let him go.

_But the man was having none of it. _

Because Lorne appeared to be thinking quickly. Having obviously compartmentalized what had happened as his mind visibly worked. - Eyes flitting from his dripping canines, to the distant tree line, and then back again. Lingering on the yawning hole where his chest used to be as the scent of determination starting coming off the man in _waves._

"If I can give you what you need. I will. I-I _want__ to_." Lorne responded, almost yelling the last part as he struggled to make himself heard amidst his growing murmurs and fitful spluttering.

A shocked silence reigned as the both of them fell deathly still. And in spite of all his good intentions he couldn't help but meet the man's gaze. Taking in the way they reflected back at him, eyes troubled, darkened with the trailing edges of fear and confusion. – Yet they undeniably honest at the same time. Because like it or not, whatever possible reasons Lorne might have had for wanting to do this, they were unquestionably genuine.

..And somehow, that just made the whole thing that much _more_ screwed up.

"Major, I don't…Not-not like this." He muttered weakly, almost at a loss for words as he tried to explain. - It wasn't supposed to be this way. – This wasn't what he'd wanted. Between a vampire and a human, as rare as such a union was, the sharing of blood was the highest form of self. - A gift of both love and life that went beyond mere words or knowing glances. It wasn't supposed to happen this way..

But against the thudding warmth and rich liquid velvet pulse he was no match. And he knew it. Especially like this. - But he still hung on to the last tatters of his resolve as he tried to pull away yet again. Limbs ineffective, drained, and weak as he struggled against the man's budding strength, a sensation he hadn't felt since his last fleeting moments of _humanity_.

Feeling cornered and fasting running out of options, he bared his teeth and hissed. Trying his best to warn Lorne off, tugging himself away from the man's warmth with a few desperate jerks. Thinking that Lorne might leave him be after such a violent, threatening display. - Only the man didn't even blink. He didn't even fucking _flinch._

"–_ Hey!_ This isn't up for debate! Parrish? – Look at me doc!" Lorne demanded.

And the man was either dumb as a post or had the survival instinct of an overly affectionate gnat because without even so much as a pause, the hands were back. Wrapping around fabric of his ruined expedition jacket in the exact same way as they always did. Like _nothing_ had changed between them at all. - And for reasons beyond him he took solace in that, in the familiarity of it. – Clinging onto it by a thread as he willed himself away from the brink.

His mind screamed at him to take what he was being offered, with what he'd been craving since the very beginning. Blood that had _never_ smell so tantalizing, so _sweet_. - Like it something that could have been a _pleasure_ rather then a necessity. And now it was all he could sense. _Christ_. It was _right_ there, moving through the veins and arteries just underneath the beguiling thinness of the man's skin.

…He was a triggers breath from giving into that thrumming, harmonic pull and they _both_ knew it…

- Because the warmth of the man's skin was already making him shudder. All but curling into the man as instinct took over, hands unconsciously mirroring Lorne's hold as he grasped the man by the shoulders. - A desperate little whine rattling up his throat at the contact. Canines throbbing as the inches between them waned and the echoing pulse of Lorne's heart hummed through him. Sending tiny, shock waves of vibration coursing across their joined flesh.

His hackles rose. - Desperation, fear, and hunger all battling for dominance as Lorne eased them back to the ground. Holding him in that strong grip, their chests flush together as Lorne reached up, tearing off both their ear pieces as one handed before he started loosening his vest collar with the other. - Fingers only just starting to tremble as he looked back down at him, clearly at a loss as to how he should proceed.

…_And __just __like __that,__ the__ battle,__ if__ it__ had __ever__ swayed __in__ his __favor, __was__ abruptly, __and __quite__ wholly__ lost_… Because he just _couldn__'__t_…Not anymore. _He__ just__ wasn__'__t __that__ strong__…_

"Doc. Doc… You gotta tell me what to do. How do I-.." Lorne began. Voice trailing off as long fingers curled around the thickness of his wrist, snapping off the man's watch with a criminally easy snap as he coaxed the curve of the man's wrist inwards. Breathing against the softness he found there. - Because he was already five steps ahead as Lorne shifted above him, confusion and nervousness slipping from his lips as comprehension began to dawn.

"_This_. Like this." He hissed, bringing the man's wrist to his mouth just as the man hunched closer, moving with him until he was all but draped over top him, surrounding him with the man's alluring scent as his canines dragged across his slick lower lip.

- He could feel the catch of partially dried blood pulling against the over sensitized pads of his fingers at he drew the man in. Scenting all the way down the man's skin as he all but nuzzled the underside of Lorne's wrist. - God, even now it was almost too much.

"Parrish..- Parrish, are you going to-..?"

The sharp drag of his fangs scraping across the vulnerable softness of Lorne's wrist was all the warning he gave. Because before the man could even so much as finish his sentence, his canines were sinking deep into the man's giving flesh. Fangs sliding through the man's skin like a knife through butter a mere second before the sweetness of red came flooding in.

- The man's blood hit his tongue in rich purifying waves. With a taste that had him both snarling and purring in turn as life started trickling down through his blood starved veins, coating his parched throat with life-affirming red as he swallowed again and again.

_Everything else faded._

Ravenous, he let his jaw clamp down, yanking Lorne closer as he suckled. Losing himself in the pulsing thrum as the man breathed heavily above him. - Breaths puffing hotly against the curve of his neck and collarbone in a way that had him growling into the man's skin. Arching into him from behind as he pressed himself into every square inch of skin he could reach. - Taking it as his due when Lorne's muscles tensed. Pulse fluttering as pleasure fueled heat roared across the man's skin, blanketing the Marine in a full body blush as he nuzzled deeper into the man's hold.

A growl built in his throat as the man responded to him. Scent changing from the sour stink of fear and confusion into something better, something sweeter, something that almost tasted like.. – _Fuck..__ -_ The moment was wonderful and horrible all at once. Because the blood was hot, searing hot. – Human hot. – …_Evan_. - Christ, the potency of it! It was akin to sexual arousal. It was different. Different from all the other times.. All the-

Blunt fingers dug into his hair, scratching across his scalp with a fierce rhythmic motion that only had him swallowing _that_ much faster. Purring and hissing into the heavy air as Lorne gasped into jut of his collarbone. Lips dragging across his skin as his head started to lower. - The man's lids fluttered obscenely as he drank. Unable to help it as he stared, watching the man out of the corner of his eye as he took a few deliberately hard pulls. Delighting in the hitching moan the action got him. The sight alone causing him in snarl in pleasure as the blunt fingers dug ever deeper.

"Oh..- _Oh.._" That was all Lorne seemed capable of saying. - Reduced to monosyllables and harsh, pitching sounds that had the _gall_ to turn into real words when he wasn't looking.

He didn't know how long it had been when he forced his fangs to retract. Laving the wound with a few lingering swipes of his tongue before he wrenched himself away. Landing on his elbows across from where the man still knelt, panting hard as Lorne instinctively clutched his wrist, the wound already beginning to clot as they watched.

And for a long time they just stared at each other, breathing hard. Lorne staring at him with an expression he couldn't define. Fingers still wrapped disbelievingly around his wrist, keen eyes watching as the twin punctures and gently torn skin began to fade. His saliva encouraging the healing process as the wound slowly began to close.

He hadn't tasted human blood in over four decades. But still, there was something different about it this time. The feeding, the _taste_, he'd never experienced the like. It had been sensual and downright intimate for both of them. He knew it. - _He__ had__ tasted__ it. -_ His brain worked_, _struggling for the answers that seemed only inches from his grasp. Body busily healing even as his mind spiraled outwards, thoughts flirting with the possibilities as reality slowly dawned. - Did that mean that Lorne-..._  
><em>

_...Still, that didn't change the fact that everything had gone officially FUBAR._

- Because Lorne was _still_ staring at him. And his tongue was _still_ chasing the man's taste as he bathed his lips and fingers with his dripping tongue. Unable to stop himself as the man's breathing ratcheted up another notch, blue eyes glinting impossibly bright as the man's eyes took in every movement he made. Lips parting as the man's tongue slowly emerged. Peaking out to moisten suddenly dry lips in a way that had his canines throbbing all over again…

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_What__ is__ love?__ Love__ is__ when __one__ person__ knows__ all__ of__ your __secrets...__your__ deepest,__ darkest,__ most__ dreadful__ secrets__ of__ which__ no __one__ else __in__ the __world__ knows...__ and__ yet __in__ the__ end, __that__ one__ person __does __not __think __any__ less__ of__ you;__ even__ if __the__ rest __of__ the__ world __does.__"_ – Unknown.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to a pre-slash relationship. With full on slash in later chapters, which will be appropriately marked as this fiction continues. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author's note#1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt at the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire."_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Seven_

When they finally made it back through the gate, he walked through Atlantis in a daze. - Making quick, impossible excuses for his lack of jacket and shirt as he escaped towards the relative comfort of his rooms. Ignoring both the stares and the inevitable whispering as he strode through the halls bare-chested.. – A strange mixture of lean, freckling muscle, and a miss matched mess of contrasting tans, that reflected oddly underneath Atlantis's glowing overhead lights.

The rumor mill was undoubtedly going to have field day with this one. In fact he could hardly blame them. Nakedness, blood spatter, and an uneasy, forced calm after a giant _cluster fuck_ of a mission was enough to send even the most docile of tongues wagging. – Hell, he wasn't even paying much attention and he saw at _least_ ten furtive hands pressing against the call buttons of their radios before the worm hole had fully disengaged. This was going to be all over Atlantis by _dinner._

His stomach roiled at the mere thought. Stress, fear, and uncertainty rising up his throat like bile as he aimed his feet towards the residential wing, forcing what he hoped was an apologetic smile when he tripped over his own feet, and nearly bull dozed both Mieko and Zelenka into the wall when they rounded the corner unexpectedly. – Muttering a quick apology as the smaller woman all but '_meeped!'_ in surprise as he strode quickly past.

But he hardly even noticed, too stuck on the forced slam of Lorne's boot heels as the man marched, straight limbed and unbelievably tense somewhere behind him. Touching base with the rest of the team when they moved up to flank him, discussing the time for the after mission briefing before he dismissed them to the showers. - Stoically ignoring their pointed looks and low questions as he turned to face Colonel Shepard and Doctor Weir as they started down the steps towards him.

- He forced himself not to slow, not to turn around, or even so much as _look _when the man coasted to a stop somewhere behind him. Blue eyes burning a hole into the back of his head as he heard Shepard and Elizabeth approach. Curiosity and worry coming off the both of them in waves as all three watched his quick retreat.

And all else considered he certainly didn't envy the man that conversation. ...After all it wasn't every day you came back through the gate after a wraith attack, blood flecked and muddy. Your scientist half naked and distant, and yourself minus both a shirt and a jacket and an suspiciously empty looking tac vest.

- There just weren't enough regulations in the Military Hand Book to cover something like that… Or there were too many… It was hard to tell with the USA military sometimes..

He locked himself in his rooms and waited for the guards. …The firing squad. - Hell, at the very least he expected to be visited by Doctor Weir, McKay, and Sheppard en masse. _But no one came._ - To be honest he wasn't sure what to make of it.

Unsettled and confused he'd packed and unpacked more times then he could count, nervous and on the verge of breaking down completely with the sheer tension of it all. Control shot through and tenuous as his canines shivered tellingly in his gums, points aching as they struggled to unsheathe. – His baser nature taking advantage of his weakness like an animal scenting blood on the wind.

Too keyed up to sleep, he spent the majority of the night quietly freaking out in the privacy of his rooms. - Stiffening at every foot fall, every insignificant pause, and half muffled snatch of conversation that drifted down the corridor past his quarters. –On edge for something, _anything _to happen_, _as the minutes and hours slowly oozed past. - Because while there were no armed guards and accusing shouts, it didn't escape his notice that there was no sign of Lorne either.

_And at the end of the day he wasn't entirely sure which scenario was worse..._

But when nothing happened and no one came, he threw on his uniform and headed off for his scheduled shift in Botany Lab Four. Figuring that if he was going to be booted off the expedition or possibly even _worse, _he should at least spend the last few moments of what little time he had left doing what he loved.

But apparently that wasn't meant to be either, because, rather unsurprisingly, frustration and partially muted terror don't exactly make for the best of bed fellows. Especially when said tasks involve the rather delicate care of some of the most needy and utterly complicated plants this side of Pegasus. -..Because within the first fifteen minutes he mistook a hybrid _Eichornia Crassipes_ for a giant form of the _Trillium Recurvatum_ and over watered the damn thing. Cursing inventively as he lunged forward, realizing his mistake a second too late. – Fumbling around with extra pots and fresh dirt as he worked to salvage the half drowned plant. - Trembling fingers working both spade and fresh sod even as the delicate blossoms started drooping on their stems.

…_Son of a-…_

Katie just stared at him, all doe eyed and worried as the whole room abruptly stilled. With everyone looking at him like he'd grown another _head_ as he cursed and growled under his breath, more mad at himself then anything as he tossed the tools to the side and stalked off. - Flicking through the com channels as he exited the lab and headed towards the nearest transporter, intent on getting a hold of McKay.

Feeling utterly useless and down right ill as the stress and uncertainty of the last forty eight hours finally took its toll; he faked the flu and took the rest of the day off. Snapping right back at McKay when the short tempered man demanded a reason, obvious pissed off about something else and more then willing to take out his temper on a far more convenient scapegoat.

– And the funny thing was that any other day he might have even _let_ him, taking the man's abuse with his usual good humor and stoicism. - But not today. Instead he shocked the entire com line into an uneasy silence as he gave the man a piece of his mind. Refusing to be the proverbial door mat as he gave the man both barrels, telling the snarky Canadian that he'd be back on shift tomorrow before cutting the connection and fleeing to his rooms. Trying very hard to tell himself that he wasn't sulking as he left a fist sized dent in his bathroom wall when it suddenly occurred to him that Lorne had probably heard the whole damn thing.

_Well fuck._

He was a nervous wreck by the time Lorne finally pressed the door chime. Having been forced to listen to the man pace up and down the corridor for the last forty-five minutes, clearly working himself up towards actually pressing the bell. - But when he finally had, his sweaty hands had slapped against the controls a split second later, long before the secondary chime could even finish striking. …Revealing Lorne, in all his wide eyed, doubt ridden glory.

– …_The man looked like crap._

To be honest Lorne looked like he'd spent the last two days doing exactly what_ he_ had. – Barely sleeping, worrying, and reliving every moment, every angle and facial expression over and over again in his mind until he knew it better then he did his own heart beat. - Until all he could see when he closed his eyes was the image of Lorne hovering above him, blood stained and beautiful. The moment before he'd hissed out all his pain and frustration and yanked the stake free.

Hell, he could practically _smell _at least a_ dozen_, conflicting emotions that were all but seeping from the man's pores. The scent only intensifying as the door slid closed behind him. …Suffocating and strong. – And Lorne was in the _center_ of it, a tangled mess of _doubt-confusion-fear-anger-hope. _All lilting and inconsistent as they locked eyes from across the close distance.

They both started talking at the same time.

"Look, if you'll just let me go back to Earth on the Daedalus I won't-..." He began, not even pausing to take in what Lorne was saying as he bulldozed through the man's chatter. - Figuring that by offering to leave Atlantis he might be able to salvage this whole debacle with the rest of the world, and indeed the expedition being none the wiser.

"…- Wait, what!" Lorne goggled. Stopping his own garbled rush of words in its tracks, something to do with mission protocols and half truths, as his gaze flickered from him, to the half packed chaos of his rooms before realization slid across his troubled features.

"No_. Shit._ Just. – Just, shut up and let me talk!" Lorne finally blurted, knuckling his forehead fiercely, as he paced. - Holding up a hand as if to stop him from speaking as the Major visibly collected his thoughts.

"Look, I have to-... I mean...- Have you ever…" Lorne began; short hair sticking up at all angles as he finally turned around to face him. – But even then the man's discomfort was obvious, unable to meet his eye or finish his sentence when he realized what Lorne was actually asking.

"No! Never!" He practically spat. Tone unaccustomedly vehement in both its force and sincerity as the mere thought all but turned his stomach.

"You know I had to ask." Lorne replied with a visible wince, looking apologetic but strangely vindicated at the same time when he nodded at him.

"I don't feed on humans. …Not without consent." He added, almost cursing himself when his eyes strayed down the length of the man's arm, stuttering over the lightly bruised patch of skin that still adorned the man's inner wrist.

Lorne seemed to mirror both their feelings when he blew out a long, unfettered breath. – Canting his head to the side as the Marine fixed him with an unwavering stare, eventually sitting down on the bed so the man could move about more freely. Watching silently as Lorne walked the length of the room once, then twice. Looking more like a caged animal then the composed man he'd known for just over two years now.

"Alright, look. You were honest with me. -…When it came down to it." Lorne amended, pausing visibly to collect himself before he continued. Hands knuckling through his short brown hair almost unconsciously as he shifted in place.

"Hell, you saved my life…And despite the risks, you trusted me with this-this.._thing_." He paused, clearly struggling for the right definition before he barreled on. Words all but tripping from his lips as Lorne fought to make his point clear. Tone bordering on desperate, as if he didn't get the words out right this second he might lose his nerve completely.

And oddly enough, he knew _exactly_ how the man felt.

"And I have never, before all…this known you to be anything but honest." Lorne continued, ploughing on without quite meeting his eyes as he paced the length of the room and back again.

"So, that's why I need you to tell me. - Everything. _Right now._" The man affirmed. Pulse racing almost as fast as it had on back on the planet. Eyes darkening with the beginnings of doubt, curiosity, and confusion as the last vestiges of adrenaline slowly began to wane. - Seeping from the man's pores like a clammy sweat even as he caught the man's eye and nodded.

- Because that was _exactly_ what he did…

**A/N:** Sorry for the slower chapter, it is more of a transition then anything else. Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness."__ - _Bryant H. McGill.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction **will** contain allusions to pre-slash and an eventual slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author's note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire."_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Eight_

He told him about 1891 and the slow, comfortable decades after his human birth. He told him about how gorgeous Lost Nation had been in high summer and of the farm he'd help build from the ground up. He told him about Chicago and his old dreams. - And about that night, camping on the forests edge. Nursing a belly full of roasted apples and half smoked venison, the ashes of his fire still red hot and smouldering as that first, vicious growl had him bolting out of his sleeping leathers.

He told Lorne about the chase, about what it felt like to be hunted. How his lungs had begun burning as his long legs had finally failed him. Sending him scrambling and tumbling into the loose dirt and piercing brush like some sort of animal. Desperation and old world fear only sending him deeper into the forest, running like the devil himself was nipping at his heels. He told him about the panic and fear. About the sharpness of the feral's bite as those vicious canines had pierced through his vulnerable human flesh.

- He'd stuttered over his own tongue as he tried to explain the pain, _the change_, unable to find the words as Lorne paused in mid pace. - Lips twisting with well meant anger and barely dampened horror as he came to sit beside him, brushing shoulders with him in a way that sent warmth flooding through him. Spreading across his skin like a pleasure ridden blush.

He told him about Gerald and Marie, about their kindness and love, and the trials of the intervening decades. He talked about watching the world change, about long lost loves and the family he was forced to leave behind. He told Lorne about how he'd eventually met his dreams head on, serving as a medical corpsman on the Western front. Navigating the sucking mud and fathomless sinkholes to treat the wounded. Braving explosive charges and fire fights in the trenches of Passchendeale during the third battle of Ypres. And then again in the second World War as a general surgeon aboard the USS Baltimore, and the USS Astoria throughout the conflicts in the Pacific.

Then he told the Major of how he'd tired of war. Of the blood, torn flesh, and death. He told him about lost friends and comrades, of men hardly out of their boyhoods that had bled out in his arms by the hundreds. – He told him of eventually returning home. And of the decades spent with Gerald and Marie as they moved across country, following the waning forests as the world changed around them.

And as the minutes passed into hours he told the man about discovering new passions and entertaining flighty, passing interests. Finding within him a knack for teaching, then science, and finally, with botany. - Discovering something intrinsically powerful in the existence of growing things. Of _living _things that's sole purpose on this earth was to cultivate and ensure the continuation of life itself. – Whatever the form.

He told him of decades spent elbows deep in potting soil and nutrient supplements. Of months spent both studying and working in foreign jungles all over the world. Expanding his intellectual horizons for the pure joy of it until the day he'd opened his door to find two army Lieutenants standing on his front porch. Men in full army uniform who had spouted words like 'top secret' and 'national security' before they'd whisked him off in the back of a black tinted limousine. - Taking him deep into the Cheyenne Mountain complex, where in the presence of more military brass then he'd seen since his _own_ war days, he'd been briefed on the Stargate program. Hand picked from hundreds of thousands of affluent members of his profession to be a part of the Stargate program, studying alien plant life half a galaxy away.

- ...It had been like a dream come true.

It had only been a few years afterwards that he'd been offered a spot on Atlantis, courted by Doctor Weir herself. A woman so polished and accomplished in her own right, and quoting passages from his doctoral thesis to boot, that he'd been easy prey. – Bonding over their mutual experiences in the Amazon basin as their interview devolved into more of a discussion about the proper medicinal usage of the _Chondrodendron Tomentosum _then anything else. - Hell, when the question of his acceptance had finally been broached, he'd barely even hesitated.

By the time he'd finished, his throat was bone dry and parched. And he felt strangely drained when he looked up and met Lorne's gaze for the first time in what felt like _hours_. - Unable to ignore the fact that the man looked torn between outright disbelief and the same queasy fascination he himself had felt while reliving it.

"Holy. Shit." Lorne muttered finally, stretching in place beside him. Rolling his shoulders almost restlessly as he glanced at him from out of the corner of his eye.

He couldn't help but agree. Smiling slightly as his mind flipped back through the memories of his life. Embracing the black and white flickers as they reeled through in his minds eye like one of those rickety old movie reels they had in the cinema's back in the 40's. - Not bad for a green thumbed farm boy from Lost Nation, Iowa. - Not bad at all…

"Then coming to the Pegasus galaxy was a big risk?" Lorne eventually asked. Clearly struggling to organize his thoughts, and figure out what questions he wanted to ask first.

"Of course." He responded, throat loose from such a long period of discussion as he leaned back against the headboard of bed. Forcing his muscles to relax as he settled into the thin mattress.

"Then why?.. I mean why take the risk?" Lorne pressed. Brows furrowing as his eyes strayed down the length of his torso. Clearly thinking back to what had happened on the planet. Back to the blood and the moment where he'd chanced the gambit and risked it all. - Saving the man's life by nearly ruining his own in the process.

"Why not?" He returned easily. "Scientific knowledge. A once in a lifetime opportunity, you name it. My reasons were…_are_ no different then anyone else's." He continued gently.

"I didn't say they were." The man cut in. Voice earnest, but distracted as Lorne's eyes perused the length of him. Gaze going inward as the Major clearly thought his next question through.

He said nothing to that, content to let it breathe. Taking in the man's settling scent as Lorne's emotions slowly leveled out. Feeling a measure of calm fall over him as the man's scent slowly began returning to normal. No longer over whelmed by the salty stink of uncertainty and fear.

"You should have told me." Lorne remarked after the long pause. Voice almost accusing as he fixed him with a sidelong look, fingers slipping from his lap to curl around the edge of the mattress, only inches from his right flank. The closeness making him shift in place as the sweetness of the man's scent only intensified.

… - _What __**was**__ that? It was that smell again.. The one that he couldn't suss out.. The one that he-  
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"Oh yes that would have gone over well." He snipped, trying to shake it off as he rolled his eyes. "Excuse me Major, but I am a one hundred forty five year old vampire, how do you do?" He snarked sarcastically.

Lorne only grinned. "You've been spending too much time with McKay." He chuckled, nudging him a bit with his shoulder as they shared an amused little snort, basking in the familiarity of the moment. - Almost as if nothing had changed between them at all.

"Look. I'll admit that the lying part _was…_uncool. But I kinda get it." Lorne said a few moments later, rolling some stiffness from his neck as he turned back towards him.

"You do?" He replied, honestly surprised this time. - At this point he'd expected some small semblance of acceptance from the man, but certainly not understanding. After all, having only forty eight hours to reconsider one's entire conception of the world was one hell of a learning curve…

"Yeah.. I mean you go to another galaxy and not six hours in people are already throwing around the words 'space vampire' and 'the second biggest threat to mankind'. - That wouldn't exactly instil confidence in coming clean, would it?" Lorne finished, sending him a tentative smile that went all the way up to his eyes. Genuine and heart felt as that enticing sweetness rose up in the air between them. – So thick he could practically _taste _it_…_

_He nearly tripped over his own lips in his haste to return it._

"Look. I can't promise anything for the future. But for now, no one will hear it from me. Personally it's none of their business, and anyway you were right... Right for having your reasons." Lorne said, spine straightening as he met his gob smacked stare head on.

The relief and gratitude was so thick he almost lost it right then and there. – This _understanding_…this _acceptance_… He'd never dared to hope that it could be possible. - When that hunk of trunk had hit him, he'd thought that everything was over. And now he was beginning to think that something else might be growing anew in its stead.

_...Something good…_

The trials of the last few days seemed to descend on him all at once. Even hearing the words being spoken aloud was akin to a near _physical_ sense of relief. - It was almost too much for him to take. With the emotion of the moment sending him hunching into himself, curling down until his chest was ghosting across the knobbly points of his knees. Wobbling in place, as Lorne's hands wrapped around his shoulders, sending the mattress lurching to one side as the man closed the distance between them. All but holding him up as events of the past few days sent him reeling.

"Whoa! Doc! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He wheezed, nearly laughing through a series of harsh, broken sounding breaths when it occurred to him that for the first time in very long time, he actually _meant _it too...

"You don't look fine." Lorne shot back. Sliding off the bed and sinking down on his haunches in front of him, trying to focus his gaze as he checked him over worriedly.

"..Major." He began, trying to forestall the inevitable as Lorne seized on _exactly _what he'd been hoping the man would miss.

"Look.. Is this because of what happened on the planet? I can-." Lorne started, only to be brought up short as he shook his head.

Sighing deeply he ran a hand through his hair. Serenely ignoring the way his long fingers trembled, still over come with the severity of what had happened as his mind struggled to process it. – Body still slowly working to heal his jumbled up insides as the power of the man's blood wore thin. - Pretending not to notice when Lorne's keen eyes caught the movement, his frown only deepening the longer the silence stretched.

"I'll need a trip to the mainland within the next few days. But I'll be fine." He finally admitted. Unwilling to broach the subject as the slow burn of his growing hunger rose quickly to the forefront. - It was true, he was still hungry. It was the kind of hunger that hit like an empty belly before dinner time, one that only grew worse with time. But wasn't desperate. Not yet.

He nearly hissed in frustration at the situation. At the itching burn and the lilting blood song, as heated crimson hushed through the man's veins only inches from his skin. - Not at all liking the way the man's expression had gone thoughtful. Like he was thinking something through…

- Desperate to change the subject he seized on to the first thing that came to mind, something which ironically enough, wasn't much better.

"And you?" He asked, shuttering his eyes on impulse as he flicked his fingers in the direction of the man's wrist. "Did I hurt you when I…" He tried, words falling short as he realized how useless they really were. Because he knew he _hadn't _hurt him, he knew it and Lorne knew it. – …He had _tasted it. _

The man drew a slow breath at that. Straightening from his crouch as the fingers of his free hand circled around his wrist. Rubbing slow, oblivious circles into the lightly bruised skin, the movement growing lazy and down right deliberate when the man noticed the raptness of his gaze.

_Son of a.. - Was Lorne doing that on purpose?_

– It was a sight that by itself had him hardening in his slacks. BDU's pulling just a fraction too tight as the man's fingers skated across the surface of those two, barely noticeable puncture marks. - Pressing, and sliding against them in a way that seemed all but _perverse. _

_Oh god.._

He closed his eyes against it, trying to put the outright_ sensuality_ of the sight out of his mind. - But it didn't work. Not this time. Because even now he could smell the man's arousal, thick and musky as it rose up and expanded outwards from the very depth of his sense memory. - So strong, and so _present _that it made him do a double take.

- Senses confused and over whelmed as the scent only grew, exciting his canines until they slid down from his gums, grating against his clenched teeth until he forced them back. - Working his gums with the flat of his tongue as he fought to keep them sheathed.

Because if he didn't know any better… He could have_ sworn_ that the scent now rising up between them was no longer _solely _from that of his memory.. - Wafting through the air, all bitter fresh and tangy sweet in a way that only the _present _can right express…

…Christ. Sometimes life_ really_ wasn't fair.

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow."__ - __Benjamin Franklin_


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. This particular chapter **will **have man on man goodness. Thus, slash. Just so everyone is on the same page. - This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author's note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire."_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Nine_

When Lorne finally spoke he nearly jumped right out of his skin. Startled from the depths of his own impassioned thoughts as the man shifted in place. Too stuck on the slow, callous roughened spirals the man was etching into his skin. - Favoring the lightly bruised flesh in a way that had him all but mesmerized. His baser nature rising just underneath the surface, control shot through and paper thin as his canines ached. Dropping down and retracting on pure impulse as saliva pooled across his tongue. - Mind torrid, conflicted, and all but roaring for release as instinct and need demanded his response.

Insisting that he take what was so _clearly_ being offered as both sides of his nature struggled to make sense of the man's actions. To a human it could have been a simple, meaningless gesture. But to a vampire? …_Fuck, _such an action was akin to _foreplay…_ - …And he couldn't help but admit, that watching the man touch his mark was affecting him far more then he was willing to own up to...

Fuck the learning curve; they were dealing with a freaking_ mountain_.

"- It wasn't bad. - I mean. I don't… It was..." The man trailed off, fingers halting their slow, torturous circles. - Pausing instead over top the twin nicks that marked where his canines had sunk home. The pads of both his index finger and his thumb pressing down in a way that had him shifting restlessly into the covers. Plucking and pulling at the coverlet until he forced himself to still. Trying his best to ignore it when his sharp nails extended, sinking deep into the thin mattresses as his fists curled and clenched around the edge of the bed.

"– You know, honestly, I don't know_ what_ that was." Lorne finally replied. Letting loose a small, embarrassed sounding chuckle as he palmed the back of his neck, clearly at a loss to describe it. - But seemingly buoyed to explore it further when he chanced a nod in response.

"And for you?" Lorne asked. "_I felt_..I mean…Does that always happen? Is it always that, um.._intense_?" The man finished. Innocently hitting the brunt of matter right on its god damned head.

_Crap._

He froze. Saying nothing as the man started pacing again. His movements slow, but growingly restless the longer the silence stretched. Fixing him with a series of small, but growingly significant looks as he circled, prowling about like a coon hound that had caught the scent of fox on the wind.

"No. No it doesn't." He finally admitted. Closing his eyes for a brief moment as his tongue flicked over his gums, canines extending behind the meager barrier of his lips before he could stop the slide. – Only this time he couldn't find it in him the force them back. _He just couldn't.._

"Then why were you so..? - Because you were really… I mean, when you were… well, you know." Lorne tried, descriptions eventually failing him as he abandoned words in favor of splaying his fingers into the air. Gesturing off behind him as the memories of that moment back on the planet filtered over them both.

"I mean was it just because of the blood?" Lorne pressed. Voice heavy now, precise and focused, like he somehow just _knew._

"No." He snapped, willing his nails to retract as he rose up from the bed. Joints cracking loudly in the forced quiet as the man moved forward, advancing dangerously close every time he sought to put some distance between them. Feeling cornered, and somehow over matched as the man refused to let the matter rest.

"..Doc?"

His head spun. He'd hoped to avoid this. He'd been so scared of ruining everything that he'd nearly forgotten what lay beneath the surface; the feelings, the emotions, the very core of why they were _right_ here, _right_ now. – God, he felt like pulling his hair out. He felt like pushing the man up against the wall and doing things to him that he was _positive _there wasn't even a _name _for. He felt like…

He sighed audibly. – …Say what you wanted about Major Evan Lorne, but the truth was that he was a determined little bastard. - A beautiful, stubborn, son of a bitch that didn't know when to leave well enough alone.…

"_David._"

He bit back a snarl by the skin of his teeth. Canines grazing across the inside of his lower lip as annoyance finally got the better of him. - Apparently this was going to be a day for the revelations of a host of different truths. Because he could think of no other explanation other then to tell Lorne the truth. …_Again_. He just hoped that he wasn't wrong..- That what his _senses _were telling him was more then just sugar pills and wishful thinking.

"Look. It's not.. – I might..kind of.._like_ you." He finally sighed, the words barely audible as he fidgeted in place, peering up at the other man through long lashes. - Cursing both himself and his apparent inability to express himself in vernacular above that of a couple of fifth graders exchanging Eskimo kisses underneath an elementary school jungle gym.

Ironically, the man took it better then he did. Because at first Lorne didn't react at _all_. There was just.._nothing. _No disgusted shouts or horrified exclamations. Not even the cold scent of frozen iron, the smell he'd come to associate with that of anger and betrayal. _Nothing. _– Instead Lorne's face went blank. Body freezing, statue still and expressionless as the man's gaze went inward. - As if his reaction was more internal then anything else.

Either way the suspense was _tortuous. _

But just when he was about to stutter out _something_, an apology or perhaps even a plead, the man suddenly stirred. Cheeks hollowing as he exhaled a long held breath, running a hand through his already mussed up hair as Lorne tilted his head to the side and met his gaze.

…And like a ray of sunshine in dead winter, something that looked suspiciously similar to that of relief, flirted with the slow upturn of the man's lips….

– He blinked. Relief? He didn't understand… - But by then it was too late. Because as quickly as it had appeared, it was replaced by that of thinly veiled determination and unmistakable purpose.

A base growl rumbled up the length of his throat as he took in the man's scent. Hissing when he realized he could glean nothing from it. It was too confused, devolving and reforming until it was nothing more then a free falling mess of chaos and conflicting emotions. The man's scent changing so rapidly that even_ he_ couldn't get a bead on what the man was about to do.

"I'm going to try something.." Evan suddenly blurted, tone lilting off at the end like he'd started off intending to ask a question but had changed his mind in mid word. - Suddenly leaning in far too close, crowding him up against the wall beside his desk in a way that had him inhaling sharply. - Scenting the man from blood to bone, nervous sweat to clenched fists. All the while finding himself completely unable to ignore the heady scent of warm iron swelling up under the thinness of the man's skin.

"Evan, what are you doin-_mmph!_"

But by then the man's lips had already fallen across his. - Explosive, insistent and just the right amount of desperate that it sent sparks lancing across his skin. Keen senses imploding as reality orbited off into star bursts and static. - And he didn't even get a moment to recover, because without even so much as a fair warning the man was already hungrily devouring his lips. – Tongue dancing between blunt teeth and the sudden sharpness of his canines with hardly a pause to the contrary. _…Like they didn't even matter to him at all…_

- But what was more was that he sensed _confidence_ in that kiss. Confidence, desperation, and hope all rolled up into one. - And was for those reasons and perhaps those reasons _alone_, that he couldn't help but return it. Leaning forward into the press as he gave as good as he got. Fingers curling around the arch of the man's throat as bare skin abruptly met with bare skin.

When Lorne eventually managed to pull back, it was a near thing. All sloppy, lingering kisses and fingers that just couldn't seem to separate themselves from the others skin. - Almost gasping for breath as they rested their foreheads together. Leaning into each other unabashedly as fingers and hands curled fast around each others arms, as if reluctant to let go even for the slightest of moments.

- It was ridiculous, confusing, and god damned perfect all at the same time.

"I am going to go out on a limb here and say that we _definitely_ want the same thing." Evan murmured. Chuffing a laugh into the base of his throat as spit-slick lips brushed enticingly along the curve of his chin. Arching downwards with the light, grating, burn of stubble roughened skin.

"Because drawing from the evidence, I might kind of like you too." The man continued. His grin shy, but undeniably heated as his gaze strayed back towards his lips.

He just stared.

Because it was then, with all the clarity of a fucking lightening bolt to the brain; everything suddenly made blinding sense. - It was that smell. That one scent he hadn't been able to define. - So much like arousal, yet intrinsically more in its complexity.

- Evan wanted this. _Him.._. …Everything he was despite all odds.

_Christ…_

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – One or two more chapters and I plan on wrapping this up!

"_It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more 'manhood' to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind." - Alex Karras_


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Warnings:** This story is a Parrish/Lorne. This particular chapter **will **have man on man goodness, kissing, groping, thrusting, etc. Thus, slash. Just so everyone is on the same page. - This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

**Author's note #1:** This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: **Parrish_Lorne.** The prompt goes as follows: _"Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire."_

_**Before the Blood Dries**_

_Chapter Ten_

He had the man pressed up against the wall before either of them could figure out what the fuck had just happened. Because before he could over think it, before he could temper it down, or lose his nerve, everything was already dissolving into crimson hued static and appreciative moans.

- Conscious thought suddenly reduced to the feeling of the man arching up beneath him. To the passionate little cries that were slipping from both their lips now as Lorne's fingers dug deep into the meat of his shoulders. Desperate for purchase as their cocks ground together.

He all but choked on his own tongue when arousal hit. - His, Evans, it didn't matter. It was too much. - He couldn't help but bare his teeth and snarl into it. Hissing against the man's red flushed skin as he let his lips drag across the breadth of the man's shoulders, scenting him. Growling and purring into the man's nape as Evan moaned underneath him. The sensation sending vibrations coursing across his skin like an electric fire, sparking and dangerous.

The man's desire was so intense, so _thick_ that it was down right sobering. – Growing until he couldn't help the high, needy little whimper of sound that escaped from his throat, echoing out almost embarrassingly loud against the other man's lips. - Christ, he was _whining_. The sound rolling up from the back of his throat in a way he didn't even know was _possible. _

And even then Lorne was talking him through it, making it worse and better all at the same time as the man whispered filthy things into his ringing ears._ - _Snapping his hips into the jut of the man's groin on pure instinct, working himself deeper into Lorne's hold like he was trying to climb right into the man's skin. Overcome by how much he _wanted…_

The man's blunt fingers were still scrabbling against his skin for purchase when he used his superior strength to throw the man up against the wall, grinding against him boldly as he licked a stripe up the man's neck. Delighting in the passionate shiver as the man bared his throat without question.

The action went straight to his groin as he hissed, growling out his pleasure as he bathed the arch of the man's neck with his tongue. Mindful of his teeth as he let his canines score a shallow line across the length of it. Laving and sucking at the twin scratches as he coaxed them into twin tracks of crimson. Favoring them with desperate suckling licks until his saliva healed them over completely.

"God.._David…" _Lorne groaned, arching up in his hold, all tanned skin and callous roughened palms. The man's blunt fingers digging into the clasps of his trousers with the singular purpose of _more_; more skin sliding against sweat soaked skin. …_More. _

He almost startled backwards when Lorne's thumb scored down his zipper, gifting him with a brief burst of friction before his trousers were abruptly pooling around his ankles. Leaving him half naked as Lorne started on his shirt, working his long, pleasure deadened limbs through the arm holes as he simply stood there. - Desperately trying to remember how to breathe.

…And for the life of him, he realized he might have just forgotten how buttons worked…

He was arse naked before he'd even _started_ on the man's pants. But Lorne only licked his lips and stared. And god help him, but he stared _right_ back. - Too stuck on trying to figure out what part of his body he wanted to move first that Lorne actually beat him to it. Surging forward and crushing their mouths together in a way he hadn't thought the man was capable of. - All brutal strength and unquenchable desire.

Evan held nothing back as blunt fingers dug deep into his skin, sending him snarling into the scruff of the man's neck as he used his superior strength to pin the man underneath him. Baring his teeth and hissing in pleasure as Evan pushed upwards. - Trying to unseat him in a mock battle for dominance that had his baser nature roaring. Almost bowled over by the need to claim and take Evan as his own the harder the man struggled.

He let his nails extend. Locking eyes with the man pinned underneath him as he let his index finger drag down Lorne's scar flecked skin. Delighting in the jerky little movements the action produced as he arrowed downwards. - Further and further until the sharp points had reached the man's belt buckle. Letting the action breathe for a long, agonizing moment before his fingers blurred. Sharp claws sending the buttons of the man's pants skittering off dead space with a single flick of his wrist. - Clicking and clattering across the deck plating behind them as Evan's eyes widened, gaze fixed on his bared fangs even as the man's cock jumped underneath his hand.

_Fuck._

"For a man that just found out about vampires less then twenty four hours ago, you certain know how to get one riled up." He managed between kisses, hissing with unexpected pleasure as the man arched up in his hold, bucking his hips until his long naked cock strained against the man's ravaged uniform pants.

"I don't know _shit _about vampires. But _do_ I know _you." _Lorne shot back, tone airing out like a challenge as the man flashed him a toothy grin. - Panting hotly into the near silence before he leaned in for another sloppy, lingering kiss.

He'd stripped Lorne of his pants and was working blind as he tugged on the elastic of the man's briefs when his canines accidentally scored a deep stripe across Lorne's bottom lip. - Sending blood welling up to the surface in a way that had them _both_ moaning into the kiss. …Losing himself in the red. - Tongue lapping at the raw, metallic taint of new blood, chasing the taste as he sucked the man's lip into his mouth. Matching the man thrust for thrust as Lorne curved up into him.

And even then he couldn't help but bury his face into the curve of the man's nape. Desperate to feel that frenzied pulse reverberating across his skin, torturing himself as his canines ached to plunge deep. To pierce through the man's flesh and dip into the arteries that lay just underneath the surface. - Flirting with the man's death as he pulled tart sweetness directly from the vein. .._Christ._

The fabric of the man's briefs tore audibly, shredding right off the man's hips when he tugged just a _bit _too hard. Half sheathed nails rasping across Lorne's bare hips as the unfortunate garment slid through his fingers. – Unable to stop the completely unrepentant grin as he hissed into the man's mouth, forcing his claws to retract as he dug them into the man's hips, pulling him in impossibly further as his canines throbbed for more.

Lorne pulled away a few seconds later, breathing hard, eyes pleasure silted and dark. Licking his swollen lips until the man was tonguing up his own blood, curling his tongue around the taste almost experimentally... - Looking him right in the eye as he did it, keen eyes fixed on his face as a burst of lust rocketed through him at the sight.

_- Well… that was just…unexpected._

He inhaled with a rattling purr. All base sounds and throaty growls as his fingers ghosted over the thin scratches that still stood out at the base of the man's throat. Hissing in both surprise and warning as Lorne hooked his fingers in his hair and dragged him close. …Baring his neck to him with a single, heart stoppingly deliberate move.

"Do it. I _want _you too." Lorne hummed. - Pulse jumping under his long fingers as he pressed his palms into the tight muscles that framed the base of Lorne's neck. - Almost kneading the man's flesh with his barely sheathed nails as he rubbed his face into the man's skin.

"You sure?" He rasped. Eyes asking permission even as silver rimmed crimson replaced that of light blue. – Lost to reason as the man pulled him down. Grinding their naked cocks together until his deep, base purrs overwhelmed that of the man's pleasured hitched moans.

"David for gods sake, do-_hnng_!"

With a growl he struck. Canines sinking in far harder then he'd meant to. - But he just couldn't help it. He wanted this too damned much. Too desperate and far too weak to deny them both, that he held nothing back. - Making the man curl into his hold as his fangs dragged across the man's naked skin, delighting in the aroused shiver the action produced.

…_Vulnerable skin. Perfect skin. _He hissed at the mere feel of it. Grinding his scent deeper into the man as stubble roughened skin rasped across his cheek. - Nuzzling deep into the curve of the man's throat as his fangs pierced through the man's flesh.

There was blood running down Lorne's neck, streaming down from his mark in twin rivulets of thick set crimson. Glinting in the overhead lights like an invitation. - He licked it up greedily, following the tantalizing trail until he'd reached the source. - Searching for more of that rich, tart flavor even his saliva slowly began to heal the worst of the wound.

_God..This was so-.._

"I _feel_ you." He growled, dragging his canines across the length of the man's shoulder. Fingers curling around Lorne's hips as he yanked the man back into him, lapping noisily at the slowing stream as Evan burrowed himself into his hold.

_- And the truth was that he could_.

He could felt the man flowing through his veins, sliding down his throat and pooling across his tongue. Pressing against his heated skin as the man's limbs seized underneath his, hips hitching upwards as a desperate little hiccup of noise escaped from between Lorne's pleasured parted lips.

- He could sense things he'd only ever gotten hints of before. Feeling the man on a level that he hadn't even known was possible. – He'd never felt the like of it in his life. He hadn't even imagined... - _Evan.. It was all Evan. _

Lorne only hitched a gasp in response, eyes rolling up in the back of his head when he flicked his tongue against the open wound. Punctuating the motion with the press of his palm against the man's weeping head. Until both his hand and the man's groin was all but drenched in Lorne's pre-cum. - And he was half mad with the smell of it.

He was still laving the blood off the man's neck when Evan came. Lurching upward and coming all over the both of them as he swallowed the cry right off the man's lips. Cock jumping as their fluid's mixed, grinding himself into Lorne. - Unrestrained and lost to it as he pulled another mouthful of crimson from the slowly closing wound. Moaning into the man's mouth as Lorne's lips blindly found his.

And when Lorne took him in hand the world just whited out. - Mind retreating back to static and base sounds as he whined unashamedly into the man's grip. Growling into the jut of the man's shoulder as his limbs seized, loosing his footing as Lorne's wide palm worked him over. Only half controlling their fall as his trembling knees gave out completely, sending them both sprawling across the floor, bodies tangling together as Evan's hand tightened around him. - Working him hard and almost viciously fast as he hissed into the base of the man's throat.

But against that single minded determination he just couldn't last. – The world suddenly devolving into blood song and the unexpected sweetness of release as he turned in mid fall. Sinking his teeth into the man's neck the exact same moment that his climax barreled through him, lighting up the darkness behind his pleasure shuttered lids the second before the world went dark…

He was still breathing hard when he regained some semblance of himself. - Coming to hopelessly tangled in a jumbled up mess of sweat slick limbs, and the soft grate of another man's chest hair rubbing against his own. Drenched in the scent of blood, sex and come. - Satiated in more ways then one...

"It is not always going to be this simple you know." He said sometime later, still wrapped around the man like some sort of fucked up limpet. All gangling, colt-like limbs and long fingers that couldn't seem to separate themselves from the man's skin.

"I know. But we will face that when, and _if_ it comes around." Lorne responded easily. Sounding deliciously well fucked and far too pleased with himself as he raised his arms up above his head, limbs splaying outwards like the worlds biggest starfish as he stretched contentedly.

- And while he couldn't help but want to agree with him on that point, he wasn't entirely sure if Lorne meant the vampire thing, the gay thing, the Pegasus thing, or the whole lot of them at the same time.

"But being what I am... And where we are I-…" He began, only to be brought up short once again when Lorne snorted out a deep, huffing laugh somewhere between his left hip and the smooth line of his flank. Rubbing stubble strewn cheeks into his sensitive skin as the man just chuckled gently.

"Sounds like just about any relationship I've ever been in." Lorne finally replied, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look him straight in the eye. - Gaze broaching no argument as blunt fingers came up to stroke the length of his freckled thigh, the action calming and arousing all at the same time.

"Besides… David, we live in an alien city in another galaxy. You work with cancer curing plants and trees ten times as.._friendly _as they should be. And I fight scary ass monsters that can literally suck _the life_ out of your chest with their fucking_ hands_. – You apparently drink blood on occasion and we just had _mind blowing sex_ all over your bedroom floor. - …I think we're a bit beyond 'what ifs and maybes' don't you?" Evan finished, grinning down at him smugly as amused laughter danced in the back of his pleasure darkened eyes.

And for a long moment afterwards he couldn't help but grin right back, bringing the man in for a slow, lingering kiss before he took him by surprise. - Feinting to the left before lurching up from where he'd been laying on the floor, taking Evan down into the side of his dresser as he rubbed himself across every inch of skin he could reach. Using his strength to keep the man pinned as he nipped his way across the length of the man's shoulders. Tweaking his nipples unrepentantly as Evan squirmed. Working him over until he pulled a pleasured groan from the man's red bitten lips.

- Unable to hold back a low, base sounding growl as the man's scent rose around them. - …Thick and impossibly arousing as he breathed it in…

Because really, at the end of the day the man had a point… – The sex really _had_ been mind blowing…

**A/N:** This story is now complete. Thank you for all your comments! - Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."__ - __Aristotle_


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